


and my nightmares will have nightmares every night

by seroquel (smallredboy)



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Abigail Hobbs Lives, Dark Abigail Hobbs, Gen, Nightmares, Post-Episode: s02e13 Mizumono, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:01:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27466102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallredboy/pseuds/seroquel
Summary: Miriam visits Abigail, and it doesn't go as she had hoped.
Relationships: Abigail Hobbs & Miriam Lass
Kudos: 9
Collections: Froday Flash Fiction Little & Monthly Specials 2020, Ladies Bingo





	and my nightmares will have nightmares every night

**Author's Note:**

> **ladies bingo:** there is no escape  
>  **fffc's 100th special:** empty
> 
> enjoy!

Miriam watches Abigail Hobbs with a certain degree of sympathy. Everyone tries to tell her that she's a monster, that she helped Hannibal on her own free will, that she admitted this much to Jack— _we're family_ , she had said to him. But she still sees herself in her. As much as she maybe shouldn't.

She walks toward her. "Hello," she says.

Abigail looks up at her. There's a deep scar along her throat, from two slashes there, she's read the files enough to know that. It's a wonder how she survived the second one.

"Hi." She hums. "Have I met you before?"

She blinks at that. "No, I don't think so."

"Yes, I did," Abigail insists. "I saw you. He took me to your hole, before they rescued you."

Miriam's eyes widen at that and she grips at her own prosthetic arm. She searches her mind for a memory of a girl's voice, of anything that shows that Abigail is telling the truth. She can't find anything there, no matter how much she tries.

"I don't remember," she says.

"Of course you don't," Abigail says with a degree of casualness that terrifies her. "He made sure you didn't remember. You looked terrified there, with the light. I guess I can't blame you."

"But you weren't terrified," she says. "You loved him. You say he's your family."

Abigail huffs. "We are. I'm not scared of him. He didn't kidnap me, didn't cut off my arm."

There's a quiet comment, there, that Miriam doesn't dare voice out loud. _He did cut off your ear_. She can see it, there, the scar tissue along where her ear used to be. It's sickening.

"Why do you love him?"

Abigail hums. "He isn't like Garret Jacob Hobbs," she says. "He's different. He's better."

Silence overwhelms them for a second or two. Miriam holds her breath. For a while, she thought everyone was exaggerating about Abigail being a willing accomplice, of her father, of Hannibal— but now that she looks at her, she knows that's the exact truth. That Abigail loves him and that he loves her back, even if he hasn't taken her back, broken her out of prison.

"Do you think he's going to break you out of here?"

"He will," she says. "Eventually." A pause. "How are you dealing?"

She stares at her. "Are you asking how I'm dealing with your _father_ kidnapping me and sawing off my arm?"

"Yes. I'm not some heartless monster, Miriam. You came to see me, wanted to know how I was doing. It's only fair I return the question."

She hates the question. She hates how there's no escape from what Hannibal did to her, every single thing a reminder of what she went through. The dirt is a reminder, elevators a reminder, Abigail's small smile a reminder that she's been touched by him, marked. Her prosthetic is hidden by the layers of clothes she wears, but anyone could look and see if they really wanted to.

"I'm alright," she says, she lies.

That night, she does remember, or at least her brain conjures up a version of events that could've happened, when Abigail went to visit him at her prison, the spot where she was kept captive. That hole, underground, deep in, keeping her as she tried to make sense of time as it passed.

Hannibal turns on that flickering light, just enough for her to see another figure along with his own. A smaller figure, womanly. He speaks to her, but she can't make out what she says.

"There's no escape," Abigail says, and then she laughs. Her ears hurt from hearing her, that shrill noise of laughter as it makes a cacophony around the hole. "Even if you leave, you'll always be here, won't you?"

A sob bubbles up out of her throat. She hates that she's right. She hates that she will never escape, fully, completely.

"Abigail," Hannibal tells her, adoringly, his accent no longer there. He almost sounds like Chilton. "You are so good to me. I can't believe I managed to have you as my own."

The two figures merge together in what Miriam recognizes as a hug. 

Then, Abigail begins laughing again. She reaches out her one hand to cover one of her ears.

"Can I take her other arm? Please, dad?"

"No. It would be too much hassle. Maybe with another victim, one day, darling."

When Miriam wakes up, she's dizzy with nausea and terror, cold sweat running down her back. She ends up throwing up into her trashcan, a ritual she's gotten used to as nightmares keep plaguing her.

Most nightmares aren't based on actual memories, her therapist had told her, voice ever so kind and gentle. It felt like pity. You're not seeing things that actually happened, just warped and distorted versions of events you think may have happened while you were there.

Still. It might've happened. It might've not. Abigail watched her as she suffered and she didn't lift a finger to help her, all too eager to see what her father had in store for her.

She tells Jack what Abigail told her, and he only smiles understandingly, reaches out to hug her. There's a certain glint of hatred in his eyes, that well-known disgust he has for creatures like that girl she told couldn't be all that bad.

She wonders if this is just the height of Hannibal's manipulations, or if Abigail is truly wicked in a way she can't begin to comprehend, him having only exacerbated what was lurking inside her, what was half-pulled out with her biological father.

She guesses it's only a matter of time until she knows. She guesses she shouldn't seek out Hannibal's other _victims_ anymore. It only ever ends up like this. It did with Will, and it did with Abigail. She's the one true victim, the one suffering out of this. All the other ones are simply finding a way to cope with it, by turning into exactly what Hannibal wanted them to become.

She wonders why Hannibal never tried to manipulate her into murder. Why he never attempted anything of the sort. Perhaps he just knew she wasn't like Abigail or Will, that she wasn't as malleable. That evil didn't reside inside her like it did with them. Still, her insides are empty, now that she has to deal with all of this, this emptiness of knowing years of her life were stolen from her.


End file.
